Review | Richard Hawley at Portsmouth Guildhall: These 'six old gits' are welcome any time

Richard Hawley at Portsmouth Guildhall on June 18, 2024. Picture by Paul Windsor

When Richard Hawley began to step out as a solo artist some two decades ago, following stints in The Longpigs and Pulp, his sound was very much indebted to the 1950s – with rock’n’roll and crooning ballads being his stock in trade.

While that aspect of his work is still very much present, anyone expecting a set full of that sort of material would have had the bejesus scared out of them at times here.

Round about 2012’s Standing at The Sky’s Edge Hawley rediscovered his love of psychedelic rock and a blistering guitar solo or three.

Indeed the set kicks off with that album’s She Brings the Sunlight, before recent single Two For His Heels comes in with a sinister swagger. It’s followed by another number off new album In This Town They Call You Love – the swirling Prism in Jeans, which builds to the evening’s first feedback-flecked finale.

But Hawley brings things down a notch from there with the gorgeous Open Up Your Door, a song which fans might think was a strong contender for an encore slot – it draws a huge cheer when the crowd recognises the opening line.

The ensuing Sky’s Edge title track opens like a murder ballad, but builds and builds to a frankly epic guitar blow-out, with Hawley’s bandmates matching him in the escalating wall of sound.

He’s in chatty mood, often engaging the crowd between songs, and frequently displaying a deadpan wit, as in when he encourages everyone to get out and vote next week, but follows it with: “We can rant all we like and it makes no difference, it's only love and friendship and music.” Pause: “And Guinness,” before launching into The Streets Are Ours, which suddenly feels more celebratory than ever.

Coles Corner – the title track from his 2005 breakthrough album – is the only song of the night when he puts the guitar down and goes ‘full crooner’, and towards its end this most proud of Yorkshiremen holds up a giant “Welcome to Sheffield” street sign to massive cheers.

Leave This World Behind You features some more incendiary fretwork, so much so that at its finish Hawley quips: “My fingers are on fire,” and no wonder.

“Are you having a good night?” He asks: “Well this song will put paid to that...” he says by way of introduction to Heavy Rain, another newie, which while downbeat is a fine song.

They finish with another roiling epic, Coles Corner’s The Ocean, and as the feedback fades we realise that for 90 minutes this was Hawley’s world and we were just visiting.

At one point he describes the band as “Six old gits singing and playing”, but they are so, so much more than that.